The High Court has granted a Somali mother and her two daughters leave to seek orders quashing Refugee Appeals Tribunal decisions that rejected their asylum appeals, finding substantial grounds to question whether their possible future risk in Somalia had been assessed.
Mr Justice Cooke delivered the judgment on 12 January 2012 in two related judicial review cases, heard together. The Tribunal decisions under challenge were issued on 24 September 2008. The court granted leave to apply for certiorari in each case on one ground: that the Tribunal member had failed to consider and determine the applicants’ claims of future persecution if returned to Somalia in their current circumstances.
The mother’s case had been rejected on credibility grounds. The Tribunal member disbelieved key parts of her account of past persecution and her flight from Somalia. The High Court said those findings were open to the Tribunal member and were not ones the court could interfere with through judicial review. It also rejected the argument that the time taken to issue the Tribunal decision, by itself, justified a challenge.
But the court said the asylum assessments had dealt only with alleged past persecution and contained no prospective analysis of what the mother and children might face on return. The mother was accepted as being from Somalia, and the judgment described conditions there as involving continuing conflict and a lack of effective central government.
The judgment said it was arguable that the mother’s circumstances had changed since arriving in Ireland: she would return with a child born here to a man who was not her husband, while her husband might still be alive. At the Tribunal hearing, she had said she feared she would be killed if returned in those circumstances. The court stressed that disbelieving her account of past events did not necessarily rule out a future-risk claim based on her present circumstances.
The second daughter’s asylum appeal had been dismissed because it rested on her mother’s account. The High Court found a substantial ground to question whether the child’s distinct claim had been adequately considered, given that she was a female infant born to her mother by a man who was not her mother’s husband.
The ruling granted permission to bring the challenges; it did not determine whether either applicant would face persecution, grant refugee status, or itself quash the Tribunal decisions.